March 2007

Active Learning: A Perspective from Cognitive Psychology
In recent years, the phrase active learning has become commonplace across the academic disciplines of higher education. Indeed, most faculty members are familiar with definitions that go something like this: Active learning involves tasks that require students not only to do something, but also to think about what they have done. Moreover, many faculty have already incorporated into their teaching activities associated with active learning, such as interactive lectures, collaborative learning groups, and discussion-related writing tasks.

Nine Tips for Creating a Hybrid Course
Most instructors supplement their face-to-face courses with some online materials such as online syllabi, handouts, PowerPoint slides, and course-related Web links. All of these can add to the learning experience, but they are merely a start to making full use of the learning potential of the online environment in either a hybrid or totally online course.

Rethinking Scholarly Publication for Tenure
The Daily Princetonian reports on its Web news page a story about the Modern Language Association’s task force recommendation regarding “ways in which universities should rethink how they ‘admit’ professors and later decide on their tenure.” Rosemary Feal, executive director of the MLA, said, “We wanted data that we could analyze in light of the changes in the scholarly community.”

Take the Poll!
Last month's question was: "How often do you use the following technologies in your teaching? Email, instant messaging, threaded discussion, chat, PowerPoint, course management system (such as Blackboard, Desire2Learn, WebCT, Moodle, etc.), or some other technology?"